


I Just Want You Up Against Me

by YourPalYourBuddy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coming Out, Falling In Love, Happy Ending, Happy Pride y'all, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Snapshots, inspired by those preview posts Ngozi put our, it starts out sad but gets happy!, you know the ones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 06:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourPalYourBuddy/pseuds/YourPalYourBuddy
Summary: “There are so,” he says. He pauses as a car rattles down the street. “There are so many things I’d like to say to you.”“Say them,” Adam whispers. It’s not so much a command as a plea. “Say them. Please.”They haven’t really talked about it, never in the sun. It’s only ever here on the roof or hushed and secret in Adam’s bunk late when the last partygoer has cleared out or those bone-crushing hugs after a goal, the ones that maybe linger a second too long and hours not long enough.Justin’s selfish, and that’s why he shakes his head and says, “I wish I could say them in the daylight.”But he’s scared too and they both are so when Adam says, “I wish we could too,” they climb back into the window and hold each other in Adam’s bed.“If things were different,” Adam says into the quiet.Justin doesn’t say anything, and Adam doesn’t finish his thought. Adam crawls on top of him and Justin holds him tight as they kiss and try to keep from shaking apart.__________________________Justin and Adam, junior to senior year & a little beyond. Starts sad but gets happy, I promise :) Justin's POV.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was heavily influenced by Holster's "Um, did you guys just kiss?" and the way Ransom looks at him in the [preview put in Publishers Weekly](https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/comics/article/77198-check-please-year-four-debuts-online-june-11.html)  
> (Fair warning, Year 4 Spoilers in the link)  
> __________________________

____________________________________

 

They haven’t really talked about it.

Not the way they should, not sober; in the attic they say plenty of _if things were different_ and _you know I love you, I’m just — just scared, yeah_. At night when the street is asleep and Adam’s warm off some cheap beer — he fakes like he can hold down a lot without getting drunk, but Justin knows better — and he’s shining from sweat and a streetlamp, these nights when the air is the soft and sticky way it gets after it rains, these moments when Justin could reach out and match Adam’s freckles to the stars above them, these times they are so close to each other when the world is asleep.

Justin helps Adam out onto the roof just outside their window carefully, and they scrunch up as tight as they can to the window to hold on. There isn’t a lot of space right here. It’d be easier in the reading room, they both know this, have discussed it enough in undertones in the corners of the Haus while hiding from the party. It’s too much pressure, they’ve decided. The reading room at night is a Hookup Place and they all know it.

It’s okay here. Justin presses his entire arm on the window sill and Adam hooks his elbow over the edge of the window until he could probably turn on Justin’s lamp if he wanted. It’s chilly; Adam’s glasses dance a little as he shivers, and Justin scootches until he feels Adam warm flush against his side. They’ll be sore from holding on. Sometimes Justin imagines letting go into the free fall, dreams about the wind rushing tears into his eyes and the impact shuddering up his shins and thighs.

He looks at Adam now and he is so beautiful here. It makes Justin’s throat hurt in a way that has nothing to do with his too-dry wine. It’s all the things he wants to say but can’t all at once.

“Adam,” Justin says, swallowing around the dryness. Inside the room Adam presses his fingers against Justin’s arm, and it is this sudden contact more than anything that makes him stop. He rubs his eyes furiously with his free hand.

Adam watches him, expression open and so hopeful as his fingers trail down, brushing Justin’s arm hair in a way that makes him shiver. It isn’t from the cold. Justin’s breath hitches as Adam’s hand circles around his wrist.

Adam says, his voice nearly a whisper, “I can’t believe I’m allowed to touch you like this.”

They’re both halfway to crying now because he isn’t allowed, not really, this is only okay in the dark on the roof while shingles press indents into their legs and their muscles ache from hanging on. They’re only ever in the open like this when they can pretend to be still drunk from the kegster. It’s a sentence that goes two ways: _I can’t believe I can touch you_ and _I can’t believe this is the only way_.

Justin spots a tear shimmer its way down beside Adam’s nose and wipes it away with his free hand.

“There are so,” he says. He pauses as a car rattles down the street. “There are so many things I’d like to say to you.”

“Say them,” Adam whispers. It’s not so much a command as a plea. “Say them. Please.”

They haven’t really talked about it, never in the sun. It’s only ever here on the roof or hushed and secret in Adam’s bunk late when the last partygoer has cleared out or those bone-crushing hugs after a goal, the ones that maybe linger a second too long and hours not long enough.

Justin’s selfish, and that’s why he shakes his head and says, “I wish I could say them in the daylight.”

But he’s scared too and they both are so when Adam says, “I wish we could too,” they climb back into the window and hold each other in Adam’s bed.

“If things were different,” Adam says into the quiet. Justin ducks his head as best he can, kissing the corner of his mouth as he pulls the blanket tighter around them. Adam’s lips quirk into a sad smile. “I know they’d be okay, I _know_ they would, but.”

There’s always a but. Justin has his fair share too; if men’s hockey was more accepting, if he could just get established in his career, if he could talk to his parents about it to make them understand. Adam’s right, though. The team would be fine about it. Shitty would go out of his way to be awkward and overly accepting and Jack would probably knock then both on the shoulder and Bitty, god. Bitty would be so happy for them. Adam’s right and that’s what makes it worse, that neither of them can step over this. It should be easy and it isn’t and that’s why they don’t talk about it.

Justin doesn’t say anything, and Adam doesn’t finish his thought. Adam crawls on top of him and Justin holds him tight as they kiss and try to keep from shaking apart.

____________

 

Jack and Bitty have an argument about how to pronounce ‘pecan’ and it’s so loud it wakes them up in the morning. Justin jolts awake first, shifting Adam off his chest. Adam groans and rolls the rest of the way onto the floor before dramatically flipping his hair back.

“Is this how you treat your night guests?” he sniffs, hopping up to lean against the bunk bed.

Justin smiles reluctantly. “This is your bed,” he points out. “Is this how you host yours?”

Adam considers this, or pretends to. Justin doesn’t mind the posturing; it gives him time to stretch and trace the lines of Adam’s muscles, following the V of his hips to the hair trailing downward. Justin thumbs the waistband of Adam’s shorts before looking up at him.

“Good morning,” he says softly.

Adam blinks quickly and makes a noise that sounds like the door before it got greased and Justin can’t help it, he bursts out laughing. Adam plops onto the floor like he’s punctured and worked up at the same time. He looks so put out that Justin tries his best to smother his laughter, he really does, but—

The door bangs open.

“Jackie and Bits are having an argument and I need opin — what’s happening here?” Shitty asks, one eyebrow raised, the other drawn low in concern.

Justin’s heart feels like it’s going to explode. “Nothing,” he says, and clears his throat. “You need what?”

Adam subtly adjusts his shorts and Shitty looks between them as if he’s going to call him on the deflection, and he wouldn’t blame him, really. He burrows into the bed and forces a yawn like he was just too tired to climb up to his bunk. Shitty opens his mouth, then shrugs.

“Needed someone to confirm whether it was chirping or flirting chirping, but whatever,” he says casually. He pushes off against the doorframe and starts downstairs. “Bits is doing pancakes,” he calls over his shoulder, and they don’t talk about it until much, much later.

____________

 

They have other close calls. They have so many that over the year Justin creates a spreadsheet to compile the data and Adam fits the info to the tune of the most overplayed song on the radio. He scrolls down the list one afternoon near the end of junior year and it makes him anxious, but he wants to find a pattern. Here that one game Adam took a hard hit and didn’t get up right away. Here during Thanksgiving break, when he’d gone home and one of his sisters nearly walked in on them having Skype sex. She’d thought it was with a girl and they’d never talked about it again. Another time when they were dancing at a kegster, Adam’s hands on Justin’s waist, a little too low to be innocent.

“It’s okay, they just think I’m handsy when I’m drunk,” Adam says, resting his chin on Justin’s head. Justin takes his arm and leans his cheek against it. “No one’s gonna say anything.”

Justin says, “You’re handsy when you aren’t drunk,” and Adam laughs. The sound does a lot to melt some of the anxiety clogging his lungs.

“You like me that way,” Adam says. Justin hums in agreement.

They stay like this for some time as he scrolls through the data. May, Bitty waking them up in Adam’s bed, both of their shirts across the room. December when they kept ‘accidentally’ running into each other under the mistletoe strung around campus. Their first day back this year when Adam was so pleased to see him that he kissed him on the cheek, forcing them both to kiss everyone else to cover up. Even in memory Jack’s eyes are a little too knowing for comfort, but he never says anything

 _Do you think,_ Justin wants to ask, _they already know?_ But that feels a little bit too close to what they aren’t talking about, so he doesn’t.

____________

 

They’re elected captains. Junior year ends. Justin goes home and hides the spreadsheet in a folder entitled “post grad shit” and doesn’t let himself analyze why that was his first impulse. They haven’t talked about post college, they haven’t — he doesn’t let himself think it again. It feels like they can’t get off the ground, like they’re sandbagging themselves. He hates it.

He closes his laptop.

____________

 

Summer before sophomore year they figured out the exact halfway point between their houses and met up there, but it was full of nothing to do. Last year Adam did some research and a lot of planning that both Excel and Justin found impressive and, with no real complaints about moving the meet up point, agreed to extend his drive time a little bit so they could be in a Real Town with Real Things To Do. This time Adam’s picked another spot. Justin glances at the note Adam left the address on and then does and redoes his tie.

He’s not sure what Adam’s planning exactly. He plugged the address into his phone and a stretch of Lake Ontario popped up, which tells him nothing other than Adam might be planning to push him into the lake. That doesn’t explain why he needs a tie, though, and Adam underlined _dress well wear a tie_ five times. Unless he’s planning on — Justin really has no idea.

His mom looks him over when he comes into the kitchen. “You look nice,” she comments. “Hot date?”

And this. This is why. It should be so easy to tell her he’s seeing Adam and say _do I really look okay? I’m a little nervous, you know how much I like him,_ and she loves them all with a heart so big he gets lost in it sometimes. She’s peering over her reading glasses while she does a crossword and it’s so normal that he can’t. Everything he would say sticks in his throat.

“Just seeing Adam,” he says.

She squints at him. “You need a tie to see your best friend? What’re you doing?”

Justin says, “I have no idea,” and wishes that didn’t feel as true as it does.

____________

 

He puzzles over it on the drive. There are a few interpretations — he stops himself from pulling over to diagram all of them — to choose from here. There’s the surface: _what’re you doing?_ meaning today, what are you doing with Adam that means you need a tie, why do you look so fancy when the last time I saw that boy he was wearing an awful pair of basketball shorts. That’s the easy one. That’s the one where _I have no idea_ is fine, because it’s a surprise. He doesn’t need to know if it’s a surprise.

Another possibility is a question other than _what’re you doing?_ that sounds more like _are you in love with him?_ and Justin doesn’t think that’s what she meant, so he pushes that one aside as he merges lanes.

No, it’s the last one that’s more important, the one that makes him feel like he’s lost his footing on the roof and is close to slipping off. _What’re you doing?_ as an accusation is much worse. What’re the two of you up to, why do you need to look so nice, why do you watch movies in your room when he’s over instead on the bigger TV in the living room. This is the one where he feels like he’s scrambling for purchase. _I have no idea_ is a bit damning then, because he should know, right?

And then he pulls into the address and it’s an overlook lined with restaurants and there’s Adam dressed up nice in a blue shirt that brings out his eyes and the littlest bit of red in his hair, and then he knows. He does. It wasn’t the third question he should’ve been worrying about. His mother’s concern over whether or not he and Adam are sleeping together is not as important as—

“Hey,” Adam says, hands in his pockets as he walks up to the car. This close, his shirt has a tiny white flower design in it. He opens the door and Justin, shaking slightly, steps out. “You made it.”

As important as this.

“I made it,” Justin says, and when he holds his hand out, Adam takes it. “Why’d I need a tie?”

Adam makes an expansive gesture that encompasses the entire overlook and steers them toward a table set up for two. “I thought,” he says. He takes a breath and it strikes Justin suddenly that he’s nervous. Justin runs his thumb over Adam’s knuckles and he grins. It’s like a flash of lightning, that smile. Justin would take body checks for days if he could keep seeing it. “I thought maybe, since it’s almost school again, you might want to. You know. Before we head back to people who know all about us.”

“Okay,” Justin whispers, squeezing his hand and letting go. He pulls his seat out, puts his napkin on his lap. Adam mirrors him and then rests his hand palm up on the table. Justin drags his fingertips over his palm — Adam shivers; he’ll have to remember that — and then twines their fingers together. “A real date.”

“A real date,” Adam says. Then he seems to wince. “If that’s okay. I — I mean, I think you know what I feel about you. Or at least, you know. I hope you do.”

Justin bites down a smile and says, “Remind me?” and Adam bumps his shin with his shoe. “Do you treat your dates like this?”

“I’ll treat you better later to make up for it,” Adam says archly.

Justin watches his blush trail under his collar and wants dearly to follow it. He says as much in Adam’s ear, and then how he’d like to follow the blush, along with some other things he thinks might be worthwhile. Adam’s entire face is red when he sits back down.

They get their food carryout. And just for a minute — _here no there yes right there_ — just longer than an hour everything feels like it— _adam justin oh_ — like it could be okay. Like they can do this, Adam’s shoulder salty from sweat under Justin’s mouth, Adam’s hands pressing his to the car seat. They gasp and move together and it feels — _yes fuck, justin, fuck please_ — right. It feels like the sun itself has set and melted over the backseat and dip dyed them golden.

And Justin knows — he _knows_ now — that if his mom had been asking _what’re you doing?_ like she meant to ask _are you in love with him?_ he knows exactly what he would say.

____________

 

It rains when he move back in at the start of senior year. Lardo, bitter about the leak in her room, curls up in the living room and critiques Justin’s form as he carries boxes to the attic. He does his best to make a different face at her every time he goes past, and soon Bitty joins and critiques those too.

Adam pulls in at 4:36 PM just as the spritzing turns into a crackling downpour. Justin, Bitty, and Lardo scrounge up some extra ponchos and rush around getting his things from his car. They’re three-quarters done when the shivering starts; Bitty’s dispatched to whip up an emergency hot chocolate supply while the rest push through. Lardo hauls the last box up, letting it bang loudly onto the floor, and collapses next to it. Justin tosses her a blanket off Adam’s bed.

“Thanks,” she says, pulling it tight around herself. “Why don’t you have a leak up here? Your room should be leaking.”

“Shit, thanks Lards,” Justin says.

Lardo rolls her eyes. “This is the highest point in the Haus, and it’s ancient as fuck,” she says. “By all rights this should be a swamp.”

He’s about to sit on Adam’s bed when he thinks, _she’ll know,_ and decides to sit on the floor instead. Her eyes narrow at his hesitation.

“It’d be the basement,” he blurts. He leans against the bunk until it digs into his back and he focuses on the feeling to keep panic at bay. “Swamps are low-lying places. Attic wouldn’t work.”

“Hmm,” she says. “Fine. By all rights there should be a waterfall down the stairs, is that better?”

Justin says, “Marginally,” and Lardo shuffles over so she can punch him on the arm. “What’s that for?”

“I missed you, dickhead,” she says. She drops her head against his shoulder.

“Missed you too.”

____________

 

Later, hands warm on his hot chocolate mug and foot resting on Adam’s on the couch where it can be construed an accident, he thinks about it being known. He doesn’t let himself do this often; the wanting and aching for it makes it much worse when he forces himself back to reality. But he’s tired, and Adam is warm and living and bright beside him, and Lardo and Bitty are cuddled up on the floor and there’s _Princess Bride_ on the TV again and it’s all so safe that he wants to indulge. If only for a little while.

There’s half a cushion’s space between his thigh and Adam’s, so he shifts over until he feels Adam’s leg pressed against his own.

“What’re you—?” Adam whispers, turning his head to hide his lips from Lardo and Bitty. It means his words tickle Justin’s skin.

If he turns his head, they could just show them. It’d only take a few inches of a turn, barely anything, largely everything.

“I wanted to see,” Justin whispers back.

He doesn’t say: if Lardo and Bitty can and he’s gay and she’s ace then we can and it wouldn’t mean anything other than what it is, just two people who like being around each other. The way friends are.

He doesn’t say: I’m tired of not talking about it in a way that matters.

He doesn’t say: I want to kiss you.

He says, “I wanted to see what it’d be like.”

Adam whispers, “Oh,” and tucks his arm around Justin’s waist, sliding him closer. Justin settles in against his chest, pulling his arm across him like a seatbelt. His weight is so comforting and it feels right being like this on this hideous couch. It feels like they’ve slipped sideways into another reality where this is allowed even though it isn’t completely dark out, even though the sun just barely pokes over the curve of the Earth from however far away and the stars aren’t out yet.

He tugs a blanket over them and Adam moves, lazily tangling their legs together. Justin’s flush against his chest. He feels it when Adam’s pulse settles down to nearly normal and he falls asleep there before the movie’s done and when he wakes up, they’re still stuck together on the couch. Bitty must’ve seen them before they woke up, because he’s left a note.

It says:

_Coffee in the pot + pancakes in the fridge_

_You both drool_

____________

 

Sometimes Justin’s sure someone must have heard the noises in the night, must know how he feels about Adam. They still keep themselves to the roof just outside their window and the attic, but they’re not always— quiet. Not all the time. Sometimes it can’t be helped, and the floors are thin.

“Someone had a good time last night,” Bitty says in the mornings afterward, searching between them curiously as he chugs his orange juice.

“Chyeah, you don’t say,” Nursey says. He wags his eyebrows. “Someone sang so loud—”

Adam nearly chokes on his eggs.

Dex flushes bright enough that his freckles all but vanish. “Okay, Nurse,” he says, “let’s not relive it, okay?”

“Sorry,” Nursey says. He shoots Justin and Adam an apologetic look apiece, and that’s that.

____________

 

Justin and Adam sprawl on the reading room when they can, excusing it as a simple desire to go over hockey plays or to do homework in the sun. And it’s true, that is a large part of it. They got the Cs for this season. They need to earn it, need to make sure their team knows they’re trying. This last summer, before their Skype sex sessions began in earnest, they spent as much time as they could going over plays on diagrams before one of them snapped. Justin feels decently confident in what they’ve pulled together.

And the homework. Fuck the homework. They’re both buried up to their necks in senior work. It’s gotten to the point where he isn’t sure that this is exactly what he wants to be doing. Adam complains about numbers and Justin complains about biology until they both look at each other like they’re jealous, except Justin thinks, maybe, Adam only says that to make him feel better; they usually end up agreeing that biology sucks. Granted he’s not even sure he wants to be a doctor, so he doesn’t put up a good defense.

“What’re you thinking for a backup?” Adam asks one afternoon while they’re lazing in the sun. This is the real reason they do this, for the sun and the air and for seeing how Adam’s face changes when the streetlamps just turn on instead of what he looks like almost crying and near to hanging out of their window.

He’s golden in the light. Justin checks that they’re alone and tells him this.

Adam blushes and it’s a full body thing. “Don’t distract me,” he says, and Justin lobs a crumpled up test — A-, should’ve been an A, prof wrote too many essay questions in weird ways — at him. Adam bats it aside.

“Payback,” Justin says. “You distract me all the time.”

He can say that, he — he takes a deep breath to settle his breathing — they’re okay they’re alone he can say that. He is, he’s allowed to say this, here, right now.

Something about the sunlight makes saying the words sweeter than he thought possible.

Adam looks up at him through his eyelashes. “Do I?”

“All the time,” Justin says softly. “It’s hard not to look at you. Adam. You’re the brightest person wherever you are.”

He opens his mouth to say something else but stops, taking a ragged breath, at the look on Adam’s face. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that; he looks like he got slammed into the boards or failed a class or something equally bad, like the awfulness pushed the air out of him and he can’t breathe as well. Justin pushes his homework and their diagram aside and kneels before him, taking his hands, everyone else be damned, and—

Adam slides hands into the collar of his shirt and kisses him.

It’s a peck more than anything, really. Quick contact and then gone, barely enough of anything to miss. Like a whisper or light in the morning.

It’s everything.

“Justin,” Adam whispers. “Was that — is that — I’m sorry, I should’ve asked, you were saying such—”

Justin says, “You know I’m in love with you, right?” and Adam’s face could rival the sun.

____________

 

They finally — Justin still can’t believe it.

They talk about it, properly, and Adam is sunburnt from the reading room and Justin’s in pajamas and neither of them is drunk. They’re sitting across from each other on the rug in their room and they’re sober and even here with the light on Adam seems to give off a glow. Finally, _finally,_ years after they started they’re laying everything as best they can in the space between them and it’s so much Justin’s itching for his computer.

And because they know each other, Adam leans back and grabs it for him.

Justin makes three columns. Column 1 is FEARS, Column 2 is HOPES, and Column 3 is EVERYTHING ELSE.

“That we’ll be targeted in games,” Adam says. “That we’ll stay together after college, and the way you look in those dumb shorts.”

Justin types them down in their respective columns. “Thought you hated my shorts.”

“They look good on you, they do, I just fundamentally hate what they represent,” Adam says. “Add that to the FEARS section, that you turn into a doctor who wears salmon shorts and Sperrys in the operating room.”

“Fine,” he says, rolling his eyes. He adds _Murray and Hall will make it a Thing, we’ll go on another cute date,_ and _Adam’s glasses_ to the list.

“I think Hall and Murray would be chill,” Adam says. He leans more than he needs to to see the computer, not that Justin’s complaining; it means he can turn his head and smell the spot just behind Adam’s jaw, the spot where he puts cologne and where it stays longest. He brushes his nose there and into his hairline. Adam shivers. “I don’t think they’d mind, I think they’d be — fine.”

Justin murmurs, “More worried about being made publicity fodder,” and Adam hums. No one, to his knowledge, ever made Bitty do interviews he didn’t want to or coerced him to be on all their posters, and Bitty always says he’s fine with it, but. It’s never seemed like something Justin would want to do.

They’re quiet for a bit after this until Adam’s finger poking his ribs gets too ticklish to ignore. Humoring him, Justin adds _Justin never watching all of 30 Rock_ to the FEARS column and they go over the spreadsheet until it’s too late to justify being awake. Either Justin doesn’t bother pretending to be too tired to climb into his bunk, or Adam doesn’t let him start, or both, but he ends up with Adam curled against his side as he falls asleep. He wakes up to a little circle of drool on his left shirtsleeve and Adam holding him so tightly it seems as though he’s afraid of falling away from him.

“Hey,” Justin says softly. Adam grumbles, flapping his hand like he’s reaching for his alarm. He sucks his fingers gently when Adam hits his mouth. “Wake up.”

“No,” Adam mumbles, brushing his thumb across Justin’s bottom lip. “Rather stay with you.”

“I’ll add that to the FEARS,” he says. “‘Adam will never let me wake up before eight,’ how’s that?”

Adam presses his face into Justin’s neck. “You’d thank me,” he says, before blowing a raspberry beneath his jaw.

“Not anymore I wouldn’t,” Justin says, but he’s laughing.

____________

 

The list grows over the semester until all they have to say to each other is “FEAR” or “HOPE” or “ELSE” to know that they’re still thinking about it. Still planning. Now and then he spots Lardo and Bitty exchanging thoughtful glances when Adam sits too closely to Justin during movie nights or when he asks Bitty to show him how to make blueberry crumble before Adam’s finals.

“What?” he demands, washing his hands.

Bitty says, slow, “Well I just. Didn’t know you were interested in pie, is all,” and Justin flicks water at him.

There’s an opening here. He’s not sure he’s ready to take it, not just yet, but the look Bitty’s sending him is understanding and acceptance.

 _Do you know?_ he wants to ask. Or, more accurate: _when did you know? What was it? Was it that movie? Do you see the way he looks at me?_

“What temp does the oven need to be at?” he asks instead, because it’s safer.

“Three-seventy-five,” Bitty says, and then winks. “So it’s warm when you’re ready.”

____________

 

They get warning signs. Justin compiles them into a new spreadsheet that he works on while Adam watches _Arrested Development_.

“The pies,” Adam suggests, eyes on the screen. Lucille 1 or 2 does something ridiculous and Justin doesn’t remember the other man’s name, the one who seems most On It, but the man sighs. “He’s been burning pies.”

“Always tired, too,” Justin says. He adds them both, then counts what they’ve got on his fingers. “Okay. Okay, so, distracted, tired, burnt pies, that little blush and not-blush when we talk about you know—”

“Knows everything about the Falcs, getting in so late at night that it’s morning, muttering French under his breath,” Adam finishes. They look at each other. “Do you — are they—”

“They have to be,” Justin says, uncertain. “Right? I mean—”

“But they could be friends, everyone thinks we are, does Bits have — a crush? Or something? Blushing doesn’t really seem like—”

“Not strictly platonic, yeah,” Justin says. “But we shouldn’t assume, what assholes would we be.”

“What assholes are we, you mean.”

“Yeah. _Yeah.”_

____________

 

He almost convinces himself not to think about it anymore when Bitty drops his pie.

“Oh shit — Bitty, bro, are you—?” Nursey asks, stunned.

Bitty nods tightly and flaps his oven mitts for them to go about their business. “Nothing’s the matter,” he says, his voice strained. “Just peachy.”

Justin and Dex wince at each other. Justin says, “Bitty,” and Bitty says, “Oh! I think my phone’s ringin’, sorry dear,” and hurries out of the room.

They give him his space for most of the afternoon. Lardo goes out and finds those root beers he likes so much and Justin and Dex work on baking another pie while Adam cleans and Nursey plays all of Bitty’s favorite movies in the living room in the hopes he’ll come out and see what’s going on. No one goes up to bother him.

Three hours go by and there’s nothing.

Adam and Justin don’t bother trying to hide the fact that they’re holding hands on the couch, though the only way Justin makes it is by hoping desperately that everyone thinks it’s just their D-men bond. Lardo’s gaze rakes over them, but she doesn’t say anything.

Just like that he’s snapped out of it, out of being complacent with pretending not to know until it’s been put in the open. It isn’t her fault, it isn’t anyone’s fault, but if something had gone wrong with Adam and everyone had noticed and no one said anything — well. He’s not sure what he’d do.

He squeezes Adam’s hand and lets go. He cuts a slice of pie, puts it on a plate, and heads upstairs.

Something that sounds vaguely French comes from Bitty’s door as he knocks, and he’s almost positive Bitty sniffles before opening the door partway.

“Hi,” he says croakily. He drags his sleeve across his cheeks. “What’s up.”

“Can I come in?” Justin asks, holding up the pie. “I come bearing gifts.”

Bitty’s face does a complicated thing. It looks like he’s just started breaking down again, crumbling all over again and sagging against the door even as he smiles a little at the pie in Justin’s hands. It’s far from perfect; the lattice is more haphazard than decorative, and some of the edges got a little crispy in the oven. Bitty ushers him in, taking the pie and, after Justin realizes he’s forgotten a fork, picks it up and takes a bite.

“Not bad,” Bitty says. Crumbs fly everywhere before he thinks to cover his mouth. “Not a bad solo attempt.”

“Dex helped,” Justin says. He scoots Bitty’s chair out from his desk. thinking. He almost wants, maybe. He kind of wants to tell him about everything. Maybe it’ll get him to open up. And they’ve talked about it, and Bitty seems like a good first step before they figure out what they want to do.

“Hey, Bits?”

Bitty stiffens immediately and sits on his bed. “I’m _fine,_ Ransom. I really am, you don’t need to. To hover, or whatever.”

“No, I — I wanted to tell you something.” He takes a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling like he doesn’t know Bitty’s looking at him warily. “I’ve never done this before, so I don’t really know how it goes.”

“Are you,” Bitty starts, then shakes his head. “Whatever it is, it goes how you need it to. You’ve just got to talk. It’ll happen for you when you’re ready for it.”

Justin glances at him now and he’s struck again by how Bitty already knows all of what he’s going to say. It’s something about the way he’s leaning forward but not too much, about how he’s carefully glancing up to create trust via eye contact as well as studying the crumbs on his plate to remove pressure.

“I think you know,” he hedges, but Bitty only raises his eyebrow and waits. “Or — okay. I’ll just.” He pinches the skin between his thumb and pointer finger and it comes out in a rush. “Adam and I are together, we have been since — shit, end of sophomore year? Start of junior year? Something like that.” He sneaks a look at Bitty, who’s looking at the carpet like it’s just told him it’s a carpet and it’s obvious. This wasn’t exactly what he was expecting. “Were we that transparent?”

Now he looks at him and smiles. “I was trying to figure out how much I owe Lardo,” he says. “Couldn’t’ve waited until graduation, huh? Last minute confessions are—” He pauses, swallowing; he looks like he’s tearing up. Justin mentally adds this to the Excel sheet. “—they’re. You know. Romantic.”

“It wasn’t always like this,” Justin says, and forces himself to relax his shoulders. He hadn’t realized how nervous he was to tell him. His breathing is easier now. “Me and Adam, I mean. We didn’t talk about it for way too long.”

“But you are now?” Bitty asks, eyes close to desperate. “You’re talking, and it’s okay?”

Justin nods. “We have our difficulties, every couple does, you’re the only one we’ve — well. It’s helped a lot. We aren’t crying on the roof every night anymore, so. There’s that.”

“There’s that,” Bitty whispers. “I’m happy it’s working out. Thank you for trusting me with this.”

Justin angles the chair toward the bed and pushes off, accidentally using too much force. He bumps into the bedframe and shrieks a little before tumbling over.

“Shit,” Bitty says, jumping up to offer a hand.

“I’m fine, I’m okay,” he says. He neatly folds his arms across his chest so it looks like he’s giving the ceiling a stern talking to. “I was going to say, I know you’ve got our back. You and Lardo both, you haven’t said anything to anyone and I know you wouldn’t. We aren’t — ready, yet, but we want to be.”

“I do have your back,” Bitty says, which is what Justin had been hoping he’d say.

Justin tugs on Bitty’s socks. “We’ve got yours too,” he tells him.

“I know.”

They sit there for a little bit until another Dex and Nursey flare up rises through the floorboards. “I’ll grab that,” Justin says. He gets to his feet slowly and stretches, then holds his arms out to Bitty. Bitty walks into his hug easily. “Thanks again.”

“Of course, sweetheart!” Bitty says. “Thank _you.”_

As he heads back downstairs, he hears Bitty clear his throat and say, “Jack?”

____________

 

Bitty and Jack tell them all in Annie’s a few days after their conversation. They clamor over the bets immediately, and, underneath the table, Adam brushes Justin’s hand with his pinky. They sit out on the reading room afterward, enjoying the sunlight.

____________

 

 _“Really, Ransom?”_ Adam says incredulously. He nearly drops his bowl of boiled eggs.

They’re just going through an argument they’ve had millions of times. Justin will say something about not wanting to be a doctor and Adam will hit back with something about soulless corporations and Justin, angry, usually pulls up a nonsense spreadsheet he’s using to analyze something dumb like how long it takes Dex to say something about crabbing while Adam turns on Netflix so loudly the sound leaks through his headphones. They can usually deescalate the argument a few minutes later with a touch to the back Adam’s neck, right where his hair makes a little downward point, or by Adam hanging off Justin’s shoulders suggesting new data points. If nothing else, then teasing touches up and down the backs of thighs and up spines and across collar bones until someone pins the other and kisses them senseless.

“Adam Birkholtz,” Bitty says reproachfully.

They can’t do that, none of those little touches, here. Justin’s shoulders creep up past his ears defensively.

“Dude! Back _the fuck_ off! I’ve been doing the interviews since November as a plan B! You knew—”

What he isn’t saying is, _I never wanted to be a doctor, I just want to stay with you after graduation, nothing else matters if you’re up against me._

As soon as he thinks it he groans. There’s another conversation they’ll have to have.

“My parents want me to be a doctor,” he says. “I — look, if I did that, one of my sister’s a pharmacist and my other one wants to do engineering. We’d be this weird trifecta of Nigerian parent expectations. I just want some more time to figure it out.”

Adam says, uncertain, “You and Shitty are like the smartest bros I know. Don’t you wanna be like him? Make the world a better place with your brain?”

“I dunno,” Justin says. He takes a bite of fruit. _Nothing else matters if_ — “I kinda wanna make money?”

Adam kicks him gently underneath the table as Whiskey and Dex agree with him. Justin shrugs as Lardo bites off Tango’s head for asking her post-grad plans.

“It’s a weird time,” he says, as Lardo grits out, “I. Don’t. _Know._ Yet.”

“You can say that again,” Adam says. “Hey, Lards, if we get a job you could work with us.”

Lardo says, “Thanks for the offer, Holster,” and retreats back into her hoodie.

____________

 

Their last kegster is on a whole other scale. Justin looks around the yard and the living room and it’s so full of life that he feels okay, somehow, leaving it. It’ll continue. There’s some reassurance to the circuity of things, the way time circles back on itself and creates the same patterns as this year and a year before and a decade ago. Even if it’s just improvements on the tub juice recipe Shitty scrawled on the walls and the same number of people getting sick into the bushes.

He finds Adam and makes no excuses for why his hands are so low on his hips as they dance.

____________

 

Justin, Adam, and Lardo give away their dibs. Bitty’s elected captain. The year ends.

Faber is bathed again in tears and the three of them graduate and suddenly the future is sunny and open wide ahead of them.

“Lards,” Adam says as they move out. He shares a glance with Justin, who shrugs and smiles. “Justin and I are—”

“Sleeping together, yes,” she says, bumping his elbow with an untouched canvas. “My room’s beneath yours, remember?” She sets it down gently in the jeep and must see the looks on their faces because she adds, “You didn’t think I didn’t know, did you? I thought, y’know. The couch, the reading room, all of that was a way of saying without saying.”

Justin shrugs again, sheepish this time. “I mean. You aren’t wrong.”

“’Course I’m not,” Lardo says. She grins at them. “You told Bitty, right? Does he owe me money?”

“No!” Bitty calls from the kitchen. “You said directly after graduation, this is hours after. Doesn’t count.”

“How long was it for you and Jack?”

“Ten minutes, thank _you!”_

Lardo and Bitty continue their back and forth. Adam tugs on Justin’s hand and he is so, so lovely in the sunlight. Justin pulls him close and kisses him on the lips in the open. It’s a good kiss. Adam sucks on his lip and scrapes it gently with his teeth and Justin about melts in his hands.

Adam whispers, “One last one?” and Justin nods. They nearly trip, they’re going up the stairs so fast.

It’s hard to look at their room. This room where everything started; he tried to keep himself from falling in love with him right here, lost the fight right there, kissed him for the first time on this mattress and slept with him for the first time there too. There’s not much here other than the furniture, they’ve stored up their memories and treasures and heartaches in the boxes in Adam’s car, and still it feels like when they first moved in. Adam runs his hands over the walls like he’s trying to find the right spot for his Ron Swanson poster and, watching him, it feels like falling all over again.

Justin slides the window open and Adam’s at his side without him having to say a word. He ducks through, holding to the side of the window frame, carefully scootching over to give Adam room. This time they don’t bother with the buffer space. Adam so close to him feels like he’s just scored the game winning goal for the Stanley Cup.

Somewhere down the street a bike bell dings prettily and a bird calls to its eggs. He thinks, in the distance, he spots a kite on Lake Quad. It flies so high it’s nearly impossible to see.

He adjusts his feet and says, “We’re nearly too big for this.”

“I feel like I’ve burst out of my skin,” Adam says dreamily, eyes closed, “with you next to me and the sun here.”

“That was sweet, Adam, but terrifying imagery,” Justin comments. Adam pokes his shin without looking.

“I keep thinking I don’t want to go,” Adam whispers. “We fell in love here, but we were scared here too. And it helped us, it did, but we’ve grown bigger than we were when we started. We gotta go for it, you know?”

Justin whispers, “I know.” He holds onto the window tight and brushes Adam’s hair off his forehead with his other hand. “I know. I’m ready to let go.”

Adam faces him so quickly he almost runs into Justin’s nose. _“No,_ Justin, the fuck? You’d better not.”

“No I meant,” he says, laughing. “I wanna hold on, but I wanna hold onto _you,_ not onto being afraid.” He taps the pads of his fingers on the freckles on Adam’s face and Adam kisses his thumb. “And I don’t mean everyone at once. I don’t know how — you know. But my parents. I’d like to tell them. I think my mom probably already knows, she was confused winter break when I said you’d take the guest room instead of sharing with me.”

“Mine too,” Adam says. “Hey, do you think they have a groupchat—”

“Ransom! Holster!” Lardo calls. They look down and find her with her hands on her hips leaning against the jeep. “Stop flirting, I’ll still fine you!”

“Most terrifying thing she’s said,” Justin says fervently.

Adam says, “Fuck you’re so right,” and he kisses him anyway.

 _“FOIIIINE!”_ Lardo and Bitty yell.

Justin draws back but cups the side of his face just because he can and Adam is so beautiful here.

“I would’ve said how beautiful you are,” Justin says. “Back when I said I wanted to say things in daylight. I’ve always thought you were so beautiful.”

“You make me so happy,” Adam whispers. “You’re so much of everything.”

“Is that good?”

“Justin,” he says. “How could it be anything else?”

_“FOIIIINE! DOUBLE FINE! INFINITE FINES!”_

“Oh, shut up,” Justin murmurs against Adam’s lips. Adam hums agreement and bites his lip.

The window sill hurts his arm and Adam’s sore still from last night and he doesn’t want to leave, not really, but it’s time now. It’s time for it. He takes one last look down the street and into the trees and at Adam so gorgeous and living in the sun and he climbs back inside, Adam right behind him. He spins around the attic and laughs, and his laugh bounces bright around the room. Adam takes his hand and laces their fingers together.

They stumble down the stairs, calling goodbyes throughout the Haus. He pretends the Haus creaks and settles its own goodbyes, that it’ll miss their laughter and Excel sheets, that it knows them. Then they burst onto the porch into the light.

Justin’s nearly in the jeep when he remembers. “Oh — Bitty,” he says, patting his shorts. “These are yours now. Haus keys. Use ‘em well.”

Bitty wipes his eyes. “Well, shoot, y’all.”

They mob him.

“Nononono don’t cry—”

“Bits, you cry I cry, don’t set me off bro—”

“We love you,” Lardo says, “so much.”

“Yeah, we’ve got your back,” Justin says. “Always.”

Adam pulls him into another hug. “Just a phone call away.”

“Okay,” he says, his smile a little watery. “Thanks for everything.”

“Hey, don’t say that like you’ll never see us,” Justin says. “We’d never miss our captain’s games.”

Bitty laughs at that, then check his watch and sends them on their way. “You’ve got a long enough drive, you’ve gotta head,” he tells them. Adam honks the horn from the road.

They chatter and bicker at each other the entire drive, Justin and Lardo twisting around to watch Samwell University grow smaller and smaller until it disappears before arguing about the music. Adam overrides them both, and they listen to _Wicked_ for most of the drive to Providence.

Lardo hops out at a gas station and Adam traces Justin’s nose and cheek and says, “I can’t believe I’m allowed to touch you like this,” and Justin hears it for the exhale it is. It says, _we’re in the open and under the sun and I can touch you like this._ It says, _we are so far from the boys who clung to their open window like their hearts were breaking._ It says, _I love you._

Justin slides his fingers into Adam’s hair. “I love you too,” he says, before kissing him softly and getting out to fill up the car. He squints up the road. There are places to be, and soon, and he wants to get there before the sun sets.

Lardo struts out of the gas station like she’s just bought it at a bargain. “Hey, what’re you losers doing? We’ve got a pregame to get to.”

“You in a hurry?” Adam asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Best believe,” Lardo says. “I just graduated, I’ve got plenty to see and I wanna see it all _now.”_

Justin says, “We can work with that.” He pays and gets back into the jeep and there’s Adam, his hand palm up on the console between them. Justin takes it and kisses his knuckles. “Let’s go. Into the sunny beyond.”

And they go.

____________________________________

 


	2. Coda

 ____________________________________

CODA

____________________________________

 

_“Um,_ did you guys just kiss?” Adam asks.

“Uh, yeah,” Jack says. “Think so.”

Justin laughs out of something that’s a lot like nerves before he realizes he’s done this, Jack and Bitty are doing this, they’re all fine they’ll stay beside them. It’s okay. They’re all okay. He looks up at Adam and squeezes his hand.

Adam squeezes back. “So what you’re telling me,” he says slowly, like he’s puzzling it out, “is that all we had to do was win a Stanley Cup and make out on TV instead of throwing a coming-out-slash-hey-we’re-dating-slash-we’re-living-together party?”

“There’s a little more to it than that,” Jack says. “You’ve got to learn how to make guacamole too.”

Justin laughs, for real this time. “I think the Cup’s more likely.”

“Babe,” Adam says, pretending to be wounded.

Justin kisses his nose. “One thing at a time, babe.”

Lardo rolls her eyes and says, “Ugh. Can we still fine them?”

“NHL fines are something serious,” Jack says. “And, well. We are in an NHL arena, so we have jurisdiction.”

“Hey, wait—”

“Bitty do something—”

“We’ve got a lease, we can’t afford fines,” Justin says. Jack elbows him, and Lardo laughs.

Bitty just smiles like he’s about to burst and holds them all tight.

____________

 

They’re in Jack’s guest bedroom when Adam brings it up.

“Hey,” he whispers, and Justin makes a noise like _nghno_. Adam taps his face, lightly, until he rolls over. Justin cracks his eyelid open. “Hey. You aren’t upset, are you? The way things worked out?”

Justin rubs his eyes and sits up. Adam bundles his pillow more firmly under his arm. “Adam,” he says. “You aren’t seriously asking if I’m disappointed neither of us came out at a Cup celebration, are you?”

And there — just a little hint of red on his cheeks as Adam shrugs. Justin leans over and kisses his ear.

“I mean it,” Adam whispers. “Are you?”

Justin props himself up on his elbow. “No. Not even slightly.”

“But how can you—” Adam pauses, and Justin trails his fingertips up and down his chest. “How can you be sure,” he says, serious. He catches Justin’s hands and presses them to the spot above his heart and Justin could kiss him there. Shadows paint his face blue and sleepy and it _hurts,_ seeing him like this, Justin’s chest physically aches like someone’s sat on it, and the idea that he’s given him any doubt?

Justin says, “I meant what I said,” and Adam sighs. “No, listen. On the roof. I — want so much, Adam, and I want so badly to be with you as long as you’ll let me. I don’t care,” he says, and now Adam looks at him. Justin brushes his hair off his forehead. “I don’t care that it was a dinner party. I don’t care that Chowder clogged the toilet, or that the cookies burned, or that Bits lied to our faces when he said they were edible. I care that it was _us_ and we were stepping forward together and I don’t need anything but you and you’re _here_ and neither of us it sitting outside a window, you’re here in this bed in my arms and no, I’m not upset at how it happened.”

He pauses. Adam’s face is doing a complicated thing that looks like he’s trying to keep from crying or laughing or both. Adam slots his hand just under Justin’s ear and sweeps his thumb across his cheek.

“Okay,” Adam whispers. “Okay. I wanted to ask, in case.”

Justin hums. “That’s a good precedent,” he says, and Adam laughs a little breathlessly. “Let’s keep doing that, not talking about things was the shittiest decision we ever made.”

Adam says, “You can say that again,” so he does. Adam gently kicks his shin and Justin tangles their legs together before he can retreat.

“Hey,” Adam says softly.

“Hey,” he whispers back. Then, because he can: “I like us here. Nothing really matters when you’re up against me.”

 

____________

 

Around 3:25 PM Justin wakes up with drool on his shirt and, in those soft bubbling moments between being awake and sleeping, he threads his fingers through Adam’s hair at the back of his neck. Even asleep, Adam’s the brightest thing in the room.

“Stop staring,” Adam mumbles. He pulls him closer, resting his head on Justin’s chest. “Go to sleep.”

Justin says, “I love you so much,” and Adam smiles.

“Love me in the morning,” he whispers. “And then the afternoon, and the next day and the day after. But sleep now, okay? We’ve earned it.”

“You’re much sappier than you let on,” Justin says. Adam snorts a laugh.

Adam leans toward him, and he closes his eyes. He feels Adam kiss _I love you too_ into his skin just before he falls asleep.

____________________________________

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was part of chapter 1, but formally it bothered me a little and thus it's its own chapter now :)

**Author's Note:**

> Just!!! Look!!! did you click the link!!! did you see Ransom's face!!!!!  
> if you did then You Know What I Mean
> 
> The hugest thanks to my amazing beta, Mercedes, without whom this would read like it was finished at 4 AM <3  
> Mercedes is on tumblr [ here ](https://skatzaa.tumblr.com/) and on AO3 [ here! ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/works) Her stuff is so good, it really is; there aren't words so you should definitely go hit her up :)
> 
> The fic title is from [Up Against Me by LP](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnObsyd6A1c), which I listened to on loop while reading this. If you want a Vibe for this fic you should definitely check it out
> 
> Thank you for reading! I had so much fun with this I just! they love each other so much okay
> 
> I'm on tumblr! [Come say hi! <3 ](http://ivecarvedawoodenheart.tumblr.com)


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